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Ken Gosting, a champion of tourism and public transportation, was found dead Saturday near his Mariposa County home.

An autopsy was performed Tuesday, but the results were withheld pending notification of his next of kin, said Gail Sgambellone of the Mariposa County Sheriff-Coroner’s office.

Gosting, 63, was found in Mariposa Creek after a friend discovered his home empty with the front door ajar, according to published reports. He was an advocate for founding the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System in 2000 and later became executive director of Transportation Involves Everyone, a public transit advocacy group. He was also an avid promoter of tourism, said Nanci Sikes, executive director of the Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau. “Ken was always looking for new ways to increase tourism,” she said. “Transportation was his first love.” She said he helped the late Hope Hill, of Sonora, another champion for public transportation, bring regularly scheduled Greyhound bus transportation back to Tuolumne County for several years, although it eventually ended again. “More recently, he made me aware of a tourist attraction I knew about but hadn’t focused on — the California poppy,” Sikes said. “He sent me all kinds of photos and locations of them when they were at their peak. It was the most amazing, beautiful thing. We ended up putting out information about when and where to see wildflowers.” She said he also reminisced about spending time during his youth at Twain Harte Lake. “He loved Twain Harte,” she said. “He talked about it all the time.” Leroy Radanovich, a longtime public figure in Mariposa County, said he was a county supervisor when he first met Gosting in the 1980s. “I think Ken was a reporter for the Merced Sun Star then,” he said. “I soon came to realize he was a very responsible sort of individual. It was really incredible how accurate his work was.” Radanovich said he became more closely acquainted with Gosting over the years. “I left the board in 1988 to work on projects,” he said. “When I came back in 1993, I was on the county Planning Commission for the next 10 years. Ken and I would have lunch and talk, mostly about Yosemite and his involvement in transportation issues.” When the Ferguson rockslide closed Highway 140, the route through Mariposa County into Yosemite National park, for more than four months in 2006, Radanovich was appointed as the county’s tourism director. “Ken really worked with me then and educated me in areas where I had no experience,” Radanovich said. “Within a few months, he had people in Los Angeles calling me as an expert. We got people to [read more...]